ESPN's AI-generated recap of Alex Morgan's final professional soccer match failed to mention the soccer legend or the significance of the game, despite it being widely covered as an emotional farewell moment.
ESPN deployed AI-powered content generation services called ESPN Generative AI Services to provide recaps of National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) and Premier Lacrosse League (PLL) games. On September 8, 2024, the AI system generated a 215-word recap of a San Diego Wave vs North Carolina Courage match that ended 4-1. The match was significant as it was U.S. soccer legend Alex Morgan's final professional game, featuring an emotional farewell ceremony where she removed her cleats at midfield and received applause from the crowd. However, the AI-generated recap completely omitted any mention of Morgan or the historic nature of the event, instead focusing only on standard game statistics and noting that Kennedy Wesley was the standout player. The recap was posted to ESPN's website and apps at 8:52 pm ET on September 8. ESPN states that each AI-generated recap is reviewed by a human editor to ensure quality and accuracy, though it's unclear if the human editor failed to notice Morgan's absence or decided it wasn't worth mentioning. ESPN did publish a separate human-written article about Morgan's farewell by Jeff Kassouf, but it was placed in a side menu and could be easily missed. The incident was updated on September 9 at 8:59 am ET to include a mention of Alex Morgan.
Domain classification, causal taxonomy, severity scores, and national security assessments were LLM-classified and may contain errors.
AI systems that fail to perform reliably or effectively under varying conditions, exposing them to errors and failures that can have significant consequences, especially in critical applications or areas that require moral reasoning.
AI system
Due to a decision or action made by an AI system
Unintentional
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Post-deployment
Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed